


goes on,

by vhscassette



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 03:58:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17399609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vhscassette/pseuds/vhscassette
Summary: had this in my drafts for a while. idksaiyan saga au where tien n yamcha ditch training on the lookout to go on a spontaneous, inevitability-filled road trip





	goes on,

the dimming sunlight against the heat of the car was almost intolerable. the wind that chopped through the car window seemed to ease it only by a pinprick.

 

yamcha's black hair brushed through the wind, the sun highlighting the tan, scarred features of his face. a nice pair of sunglasses, dark and generic, didnt cover the eyes from the side. he was too busy humming steely dan's  _ 'do it again'  _ with the radio to notice tien side-glancing him. the late afternoon spilled in, and the warmth spilled out onto the rushing interstate asphalt.

 

maps adorned the floor of yamcha's '76 camero, along with packs of cigarettes, the occasional energy drink or soda bottle, and a triage of napkins, fast food bags, and shitty porno mags stuffed hastily in the backseat floorboards. every now and again the ac would just outright fail on them, and this was one of those moments. to be fair, though, tien wasnt here for the car.

 

they were driving to nowhere. goku had died, _they_ were going to die, and most importantly, they were no longer human. they no longer had the rights that stupid typical people had.

 

well, tien literally being such aside.

 

they had to give themselves up for an unseen war. and they knew they did.

 

so what did they do?

 

well, about four months into training, yamcha silently ditched near the end of training one day. tien followed, never came back. the others understood. 

 

agreed? no. angry? some of them, yes.

 

but yamcha was never good at inevitability. and tien wasnt good at letting go. so they went on a road trip.

 

"'can smell the rain. can't you?" yamcha muttered, arm resting on the window as he tapped his steering wheel, raising a conversational eyebrow at tien. tien nodded, resting back against the seat. the sky ahead was slowly fading to gray, the air almost cooling with the realization. the interstate stretched on, hills and all, stretched on through the prairies of the inner world.

 

"yeah. hey, can we stop at, uh," tien said, picking up his map and unfolding it. he read the letters, following i84's pathline. ".. i think its alton? 'says here its got a gas station and i wanna stretch my legs."

 

yamcha chuckled. "sure. might be pourin, though."

 

"ill walk inside the station, then," tien said, quietly putting the map back on the floor. yamcha shrugged, smiling. he turned up the radio by about two notches.

 

"alton it is. 'kinda wanna get me a soda," yamcha said, flicking off some asshole aimlessly that decided to cut him off. tien snickered.

 

"such obscene hand gestures," tien smirked, yamcha glancing back at him.

 

"oh, i have more. wanna see?" yamcha responded, amusement slick in his voice. tien shook his head in disappointment, smiled, and began watching the raindrops hit the windshield. they slid hopelessly down the glass. yamcha hollered, fist-upping the raining air outside as the wind threw itself through the car window.

 

* * *

yamcha was helpin out someone with their car on the side of i87. a single father and his two infant children, possibly twins, cried in the humid night as yamcha talked with him. tien couldnt hear what they were saying, but yamcha managed to inspect the smoking hood of the dad's car. 

 

tien focused on the warmth, the stars that vaguely poked through the night, the cars that whizzed by like shards of hot glass through the darkness.

 

he felt like everything he was doing was delaying something, yet it satisfied him.

 

later that night in a dingy motel [not even with  _ cable,  _ the sons'a'bitches,] tien and yamcha shared a bed. body heat, warm, finding the nerves in their half-naked in the upper half bodies almost soothing themselves in the other's presence.

 

in a constantly lowering variable of days, a spacepod carrying death will crash onto earth.

 

but it was okay.

 

because tien had _him._

 

and with him, how could he  _ ever _ lose?

 

* * *

 

"i need to meditate, yamcha. this stupid music you play's getting on my nerves," tien said, the soft frustration not unheard of in his voice.

 

go on the roof, he said. itd be fine, he said.

 

well, that's what happened. eighty-two miles an hour on i65, a calm and composed tien against the severe winds above. people were fuckin' screaming, pointing at the relaxed man. and, frankly, tien enjoyed himself. the warm metal was nice, the sun was freeing in the wide, open air, and most importantly, the music was off.

 

when they were pulled over by the cops, though, yamcha was wheezing with laughter.

 

* * *

 

the stars were vaguely obscured by cloud cover, the soft light of yamcha's cigarette di mly orange on their upper halves. it smelled like fresh air, dust, smoke as the wind drifted by. 

 

the two of them were elbow to elbow, shitty, tattered blanket over them. this was their bed tonight, on the side of an abandoned gas station about a mile off the highway; they blew out their money on hot cheetos, traffic tickets, and gasoline for this week. (tien was the one who separated their spending money into weeks. he  _ knew _ yamcha would spend the rest on stupid shit if he didn't.)

 

yamcha exhaled smoke and smiled quietly, snorting. "y'know somethin'? on these roads, y'tend to forget everything. like.. you only have the road and yourself," he said, staring longingly into the stars.

 

tien blinked, not having anything to say.

 

yamcha paused a bit. "oh. and i got  _ you,  _ too. even if you  _ are  _ a muscleheaded jackass."

 

tien snickered. "i don't know about that first part."

 

yamcha laughed, shivering a little in the cool night air. "okay, that may be true." he inhaled another puff of his cigarette before exhaling it, his eyes darkening back to a bit of a cold, dusky hue. the night around them barely allowed their silhouettes to stand out against the sky.

 

the light from the stars could reach them, and that was all. it was a horrifically lonely feeling.

 

tien couldn't stop glancing at yamcha. something inside of him was hurting, in a way that wasn't usual. in a way that wasn't typical. yamcha took his cigarette, extinguished it with an already-scarred wrist, and tossed it off the roof of the car without a word.

 

it was only a matter of time before the saiyans came. this moment, the car, the giggles over red and blue sirens, the mischief that only young men forced to grow up could feel, it would all be over. and all they were doing was delaying the inevitability of that.

 

"y'know, i don't even  _ like  _ smoking," said yamcha. tien could feel the burnt lungs, regret.

 

he finally broke his gaze off of yamcha, letting himself find focus on a few silvery stars, hundreds of millions of miles away. chiaotzu once said that those stars were already dead, and that the light he saw was just traveling  _ to _ them, not the actual star itself. he wondered if thats really what  _ they _ were, as people.

 

just an illusion, what other people see, but not really all  _ there. _


End file.
